


square one.

by outpastthemoat



Series: new testament [just more of the same 'verse] [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cars, Fallen Castiel, Fixing cars, Future Fic, Human Castiel, M/M, Post-Purgatory, Singer Salvage, Sioux Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 03:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/617540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Dean’s being honest with himself, he’d admit that he started it all just so he could keep Cas a while longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	square one.

  
_Tried so hard to stand alone_   
_Struggled to see past my nose_   
_Always had more dogs than bones_   
_I could never wear those clothes_   


If Dean’s being honest with himself, he’d admit that he started it all just so he could keep Cas a while longer.  

Dean starts it all when the work on Bobby’s house is finished, when the upstairs has been rebuilt, even redecorated, with trips to the Salvation Army and thrift stores for new chairs and dressers and bed frames and even blankets to replace the quilts Karen once made, now lost to the fire.  

And if Dean's being especially honest with himself, he’d admit that it was because of Cas’s hands, really: how over the past four months, Cas’s hands had gone rough and calloused and browned by spending his days out in the sun on Bobby’s roof, hammering nails through shingles, and for some reason Dean can’t think of anything but keeping Cas’s hands looking that way.

And so it’s all about keeping Cas looking that way, keeping that look of alert interest on Cas’s face, because Dean can’t think of anything worse than the flat, disassociated look Cas had worn those awful first days after he fell, when he hadn’t cared about anything at all, and he likes what he sees when he looks at Cas, now.  It’s not happiness, not all the time, but there’s peace, and contentment, and there’s still adoration in the quiet smiles he sends Dean’s way.

And Dean has to admit it’s also about keeping Cas in those clothes, the ones that allowed Cas to transform so easily, slipping into rolled-up sleeves, untucked flannel shirts, dirt stains and honest-to-God rips on a pair of well and truly faded blue jeans, socks with holes and work boots with trailing laces, and the sunglasses he wears when it's bright outside, the too-big pair Dean gave him once as a joke but now he can’t imagine Cas without.  

Dean remembers that Cas had taken off his trenchcoat with a sigh of relief.  

It’s been strange, seeing Cas in such different clothes.  Such casual clothes; he looks almost approachable, and if Dean’s being particularly honest with himself, he’d admit that over the past four months he’s spent the majority of his time trying to figure out the best means of approaching Cas, and that’s the reason why he wakes Cas up one particular morning with his heart in this throat.

Cas could disappear so easily, leaving nothing to show he’d ever been here except a hole the size of Kansas in Dean’s heart.

He stands over Cas now, still asleep in jeans covered with gun oil and a flannel shirt because nights in Sioux Falls are cold, and that’s another thing: he and Cas still spend every night on the hardwood floors of the library; even though there are three furnished bedrooms upstairs for the taking, Dean can’t quite bear to give up the odd comfort it gives him, hearing Cas’s slow, even breaths at night, and so he doesn’t move his bed, and neither does Cas, following his example without a word.

And if Dean’s being honest, he’d admit that every night, he moves his mattress closer to Cas’s, slowing closing the gap in the spaces between them.

But this morning, he touches Cas’s shoulder carefully, and Cas opens one sleepy eye, wipes a hand across his face, rubbing his fingers across the scruff that’s more beard than stubble these days.

"We got work to do,” Dean tells him, and Cas gets up, his joints protesting noisily -and how surreal is that, listening to Cas crack his knuckles and complain about an aching back? - muttering something that sounds like  _coffee_.

“You need a car,” Dean says over breakfast, and holds his breath.  He’s hoping that as long as they’re got something to work on, another project that needs doing, Cas won’t have any reason to leave.  Something to fill Cas's hands, something to do with his own.  Something they could do together, the same way they take down vampires and rugarus.  

Cas goes still for a long moment, puts down his fork and regards Dean suspiciously.   “Dean, I can’t even drive,” he says, but as least it isn’t  _no_ , and the ribbon of worry knotted in Dean’s chest unwinds.  

"I can show you how,” Deans says easily.

“And where would this  _car_  come from?” Cas asks cautiously, and Dean looks at him in disbelief.  

“Dude, have you  _been_  outside?” he says.  “There’s a whole scrapyard of cars out there.  We’ve got, like, a million cars to chose from. But I've got something in mind," he adds, testing Cas's reaction.

Cas makes a vague noise that sounds suspiciously like  _hmph_ , but interest flickers across his face, and Dean mentally pumps his fist because his plan is going  _awesomely_ so far.  

Cas likes the garage, Dean knows; he’s caught an hour here and there working on Baby, and Cas keeps him company more often than not.  

Cas meanders around the garage slowly, he likes to pick up Bobby’s old tools and turn them over thoughtfully in his hands.  He likes to lean against the Firebird Bobby’d never finished rebuilding, watching Dean work, occasionally handing Dean torques and cable clamps and beers like a surgical nurse on  _Dr. Sexy_ , and that’s what had given Dean the idea in the first place, Cas liking the garage and Dean liking the easy silence between them, liking the way Cas leans over to inspect an engine part in Dean’s hand, listening avidly as Dean explains how to determine what’s wrong with it.    

He likes teaching Cas about cars, likes showing Cas how to fill up a tank, and how to determine exactly how long you can push your luck before stopping to fill up; how to lock your doors when you get out, and how you should always keep your keys in the same pocket of your jeans, so you don’t lose them; how to wash and buff and polish a car until she shines mirror-bright, until you can see your own reflection in the finish, and maybe that’s why Cas doesn’t really like the work of detailing cars.  

Cas is more interested in the junkers, the pieces of scrap metal held together with spit and luck and one rusty bolt, and maybe that’s why Cas isn’t interested in Bobby’s gleaming ‘62 Firebird, the car Dean’s pulled out for him to inspect, maybe Cas doesn’t like what he sees when he looks down at the hood, but whatever the reason, Cas doesn’t take kindly to the Firebird.

“What’s this?” Cas asks, squinting at the car dubiously.

“It’s a Pontiac Firebird,” Dean tells him proudly.  “It’s a classic.”

Cas regards the car with almost his former air of Old Testament judgement.  “It’s an abomination,” he says.

"What?  _No!_ ” Dean sputters.  He feels somewhat insulted.  

Cas looks at him with painful concern.  “And you want me to drive this,” and Dean can hear the quotation marks, unspoken though they may be, “ _classic car_?”

“Well, yeah,” Dean says, floundering; the Firebird’s nothing compared to the Impala, of course, but it’s still a great car.  “Cas, even Sam would fight you for this car.  That’s because it’s  _an awesome car_.”

"I may have fallen,” Cas says, “but surely not so low as to presume to drive _that_.” 

“Are you telling me you don’t want to drive this  _friggin’ awesome car?_ ” Dean asks, incredulous.  

“I would prefer not to,” Cas says placidly.

“Are you giving me the fucking Bartleby treatment?” Dean demands, but he’s lost Cas’s attention; Cas has wandered outside, looking at the junkers parked next to the garage, and Dean sees that Cas’s gaze is drawn instead to the rusting shell of plain, boxy white car.  

“What about this one?”

“It’s nothing,” Dean says dismissively.  “It’s just a third-generation Chevy Nova.  Looks like a ‘73.”

Cas shoves his hands in his pockets thoughtfully - a new habit of his, one that’s started due to Cas’s new-found tendency to pick various objects up off the ground, quarters, movie ticket stubs, rocks - and leans over the Nova.

“Cas, it’s just a junker,” Dean says wearily.  “It’s a lost cause.  And’s not even a great classic car.  It’s so far from  _cool_  that if it met  _cool_  on the road,  _cool_  would take off in another direction.  It’s  _boring_ ,” he adds, but when he gets a look at Cas’s face he instantly wishes he could take it back.

Cas straightens up and turns away, and Dean wishes that he’d said something else, anything else. Something like  _great choice, Cas,_  anything instead of  _it’s just junk_.  

“Well, I want it,” Cas says stubbornly.  “I don’t care that it’s _boring_.”  He rests a hand gently on top of the Nova, and with a sudden shock Dean realizes that this is first thing Cas has ever wanted.  

“I don’t know if it can be fixed, Cas,” he says carefully, and Cas’s eyes drop to the ground.  “I don’t know if we even have the right parts for it.  Bobby’s been salvaging pieces from that car for years.”

“Oh,” Cas says, and takes his hand away.  But the carefully blank look on his face is something Dean can’t stand, so he says, “But we’ll fix it, Cas, I bet we can.”

Cas works on the Nova in between hunts.  Dean combs the library, looking for Bobby’s collection of car manuals and cursing Sam, because not only did his younger brother take off with Amelia and the dog and their pink floral china place settings, he also made off with all Dean’s favorite books and reorganized the rest.  

Now it’s Dean who’s handing Cas tools and leaning around, watching him work, and Dean likes it this way too.  He talks Cas though rebuilding the engine, even though he’s perfectly sure Cas already understands how.  

“We’ll just use the stock engine,” Dean counsels him.  “It’s still there, go figure.  I like using stocks, anyway.  The engine’s ‘bout the only original part left on Baby, you know.  It’s her heart,” he says, and Cas smiles at that, looking up at Dean from under the hood with grease on his left cheek.  

He watches Cas take apart the Nova’s engine, watches him remove the ridges and oil pan, the valve heads and the piston and rod assemblies, watches Cas inspect the crankshaft, the balancer shaft, the auxiliary drives, and it’s good, seeing Cas so interested in something; it’s good, seeing the sure and easy care with which Cas moves.  

He handles the engine parts gently, carefully, almost tenderly, and Dean realizes with a start that that’s something Cas must’ve learned from  _him_ , and that thought fills him with something that’s almost awe, because he knows perfectly well that engines are child’s play for Cas, Cas understands the mechanics of automobiles like he understands partial differential equations and quantum mechanics.

Cas already knows all this stuff, but Dean hasn’t been teaching him about mechanics, he’s been showing Cas that there are broken things that can still be fixed, that parts can be replaced, that anger can be relieved with the help of lug wrenches and torques and that classic cars, among other things, need to be handled with respect and love.  

And it makes Dean's breath hitch as he demonstrates the best way to change the Nova's oil, just because he gets to lay next to Cas for the first time on a grease-stained garage floor underneath the Nova, jacked up precariously above their heads, and if fate should choose this moment to cross his name off her list, if she should choose to send the Nova crashing down on top of him it'd be worth it just to see what Cas looks like covered in motor oil, with a smile on his face. 

"How come you didn't like the Firebird?" Dean asks curiously, and Cas goes stiff next to him.  "Never mind," Dean says hastily, but Cas shakes his head.

"Well, it was Bobby's," he says quietly.  "His unfinished work.  I don't know, Dean.  I just wanted something I could fix.  Something I hadn't broken in the first place."

"Oh," says Dean. "I get it," he adds, because he does, and that seems to help; Cas relaxes beside him.

He wishes he could fix Cas as easily as Cas can fix the Nova, but nothing’s ever as easy as working on a car.

He turns his head to look at Cas, there on the floor next to him, and he wonders what what it would be like to sleep tangled up in Cas’s  arms, held tight against Cas’s chest, close by his heart.

They still haven't talked about it, and sometimes Dean wonders despairingly if they ever will, if it'll ever come up again, this thing between them that kept Cas here on earth in the first place.  Dean wants to knit himself into Cas’s bones until he’s something essential, too permanent to tear away; he thinks idly that if Cas was only as simple a thing as a car, he could rebuild him, he could tuck himself away in the engine, somewhere deep inside Cas's heart.

Dean sits in the shotgun seat when Cas turns the engine over for the first time, and when she rumbles to a start he doesn't miss Cas's smile.  

Cas finishes rebuilding the Nova's engine, changes the gears and tires and brakes, but when everything's all but done he refuses to detail her.

“I don't mind the dents,” he says, when Dean asks.  “And it doesn't seem right, to take them away.  Like those accidents never happened," he says, and when Dean tries to argue that the point of rebuilding cars is to make them sleek and slick and brand-new, he just shakes his head and offers Dean a half-smile.

"Aren't you even going to paint her?" Dean asks incredulously, and Cas hesitates.  "I don't know what color to chose," he confesses, looking down at his hands as though he's noticing them for the first time, and Dean recalls with alarm the way Cas stared at his hands endlessly when he had first fallen.  

"White doesn't seem right," Cas says slowly.    

"Paint her black," Dean suggests.  "Then she'll and Baby'll be a matched set," he jokes, and he has to cough to hide his own embarrassment.  

"No, not black," Cas says thoughtfully.  "And I don't like red.  Green might be nice," he adds, and Dean scowls.  

"Hell, don't paint her at all," Dean snaps peevishly.  "Keep leaving her outside and she'll finish turning a nice shade of rust."

Cas leaves the Nova alone for the rest of the week after that, but when Dean gets back from a hunting trip with Sam, the first thing he notices is the car parked in Bobby's driveway.  

"Gray is pretty damn boring, Cas," is all he says, sliding into the passenger seat.  

Cas stares straight ahead, but Dean doesn't miss the silent laughter in Cas's eyes.  "Well," he says comfortably.  "I like it."


End file.
